The number of migrant children in custody along the border has tripled in the past two weeks to more than 3,250, according to federal immigration documents obtained by The New York Times, and many of them are being held in prison-like facilities for more the three days allowed by law.
The problem for the administration is the number of children crossing the border and what to do with them when they are in custody. According to the law, children should be transferred to shelters administered by the Department of Health and Human Services, but because of the pandemic, shelters until last week were limiting the number of children they could accommodate.
The growing number of unaccompanied children is just one element of a growing problem at the border. Border agents found a migrant on the border about 78,000 times in January – more than double the rate at the same time last year and higher than any January in a decade.
Immigration officials are expected to announce this week that there have been close to 100,000 seizures, including meetings at the port entrances in February, according to people familiar with the agency’s latest data. Another 19,000 migrants, including adults and children, have been captured by border agents since March 1.